The Knife and Gun Club: Scenes from an Emergency Room

by Eugene Richards

Book Overview

Award-winning photographer Eugene Richards was asked by a magazine to report on what happens inside a typical emergency room. Once inside, he took photograps, talked with doctors and nurses and made friends with paramedics. He discovered a world he never knew existed. The Knife And Gun Club is the fascinating account of his exploration of emergency room medicine. Serial in LIFE magazine.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0871132559
• ISBN13: 9780871132550
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
• Length: 237 Pages
• Weight: 2.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 8.3" x 10.7"

Customer Reviews

Things haven't changed much at all ..

I am a nurse practitioner who has worked in trauma centers (mostly inner-city ones) for more than 20 years. "The Knife and Gun Club" was not only a trip down memory lane for me but also a decent reflection of the trauma business as it still occurs across the US -- the only really obsolete material in the book is the technology. We have a higher success rate with really severe injuries now because the science has advanced, but unfortunately the social and economic forces that created the Friday Night Knife and Gun Club have not abated. Rather, they've increased, so the Club now meets every night in most cities in the US, with penetrating trauma (from knives, guns, ice picks, screwdrivers, etc.) increasing for the past 20 years. If I were to recreate this book in the current system, the only thing I would add is the impact of 48 million uninsured and the change in hospital emergency departments as they have become primary care providers for those uninsured. These are the people who wait for 8, 12, 16 hours to see an ED provider because they cannot afford to see someone before an illness becomes serious. Richards' book is (and deserves to be) a classic.

Harsh Reality

This book is an honest look into what goes on in a busy, public emergency room. It's filled with amazing black and white photography that captures so much emotion and drama. In between the pictures are candid interviews with the emergency room staff...their stories about the harsh reality they work in astonished me. This book is so much better than any medical TV show simply because everything in this book actually happened...and the true stories are better than anything I've ever seen on TV.

True, candid, a real life glimpse of the EMS system ...

The Knife and Gun Club gives a candid and uncensored look into Denver General Hospital's Emergency Room and Paramedic Division. Richards has captured the spirit of the personell of the Denver General ER. As an EMT trained at Denver General and the daughter of one of Denver General's first paramedics, I found this book very accurate and true to life. It spares no detail and gives the true flavor of one of the nations top trauma centers and emergency departments. If you have any interest in the emergency field, I suggest you read this book for a truthful look into an emergency room and the lives of the people who work in the emergency system. This book is fabulous, and very well written. Richards pulls the reader in to Denver General and all its supporting emergency systems. I have never read a better documentation or representation of the way emergency medicine in all its aspects truely is.

An un-censored look into emergency medicine & EMS in Denver

Richard's provides an unbiased look into the world of emergency medicine at Denver General hospital and Denver Emergency Medical Services. This book couples full page black & white pictures with interviews with various health proffesionals. A true look at the events and emotions surrounding emergency care.